Page 94 of Hello, Summer
“I’m done,” Conley said. “I just shipped my story over to you.”
“I need five more minutes,” Michael chimed in. “Waiting on a callback from Charlie Robinette’s campaign chairman. He knows I’m on deadline.”
“You got it,” Grayson said. “I’ve already laid out the page. As soon as I’ve copyedited both pieces, you can show me how we upload your video.”
Michael continued typing, nodding his agreement. He held up his cell phone, indicating he had an incoming call.
“Done!” Michael yelled five minutes later. “I just have to double-check the spelling ofMiles Schoendienst.”
“Schoendienst?” Conley looked up from her computer. “He’s Charlie’s campaign chairman?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Not personally,” Conley said, “but I know he’s the retired president of the railroad and that he was one of the developers of Sugar Key—and that he built the mansion Symmes and Vanessa live in there for a ridiculous bargain price.”
Michael looked up at Grayson. “Should I put that in my story?”
“Not for tonight,” Grayson said. “Let’s get the digital edition out, then you can follow up on that for tomorrow’s print version. Right now, I need you to sit in my office and walk me through this video stuff.”
“I’ll hang out here in case you’ve got any questions,” Conley volunteered.
Shortly after six, Grayson and Michael emerged from the office, grinning and high-fiving.
“It’s done,” Grayson said. “We pulled the switch. It’s out there in the ozone.”
“Does that mean I can go home?” Lillian picked up her pocketbook and headed for the door. “My husband’s been texting wanting to know what’s for supper.”
“Go on, get outta here,” Grayson said. “You guys go on too,” she added, gesturing at Conley and Michael. “Great job, team. I mean it. I didn’t know if we could do this digital thing, but this feels good. Really good.”
“Um, maybe I shouldn’t ask, but do you know how many folks are on your email subscriber list?” Conley asked.
“Last I checked, we had about six hundred,” Lillian said.
“That’s all?” Grayson’s face fell. “I thought it would be at least twice as many as that.”
“We might want to work on our social media marketing,” Michael said tactfully. “Like, does theBeaconeven have a Facebook page? Twitter account? That kind of stuff?”
“Not really,” Grayson admitted. “We had a summer intern who started a Facebook page a couple of years ago, but then she went back to school, and nobody here knew the password for the account.”
“Oh-kay,” Michael said. “Tomorrow, first thing, I’ll scrub the old page, and we’ll put up a new one that all four of us can post to. Then after we get off deadline for the print edition, we’ll tackle Twitter. If that’s okay with you?”
“If we gotta, we gotta,” Grayson said resignedly. “It just seems like a lot of extra work, you know? I mean, who’s gonna write whatever we put up? Who’s gonna read it?”
“We can all write posts,” Conley said. “Once you get used to it, social media doesn’t really take that long. And believe me, it works. Most papers have whole departments that do nothing but social media. We need to let our readers know what stories we’re working on. What’s going on in the community. And we need to hear from them about what they want to know. The more interactive we are, the more readers—and subscribers—we’ll get.”
“More subscribers mean more advertising,” Michael pointed out.
“I guess.” Grayson looked unconvinced.
“Hey,” Conley said. “We just did something here. We put out a real digital edition. With breaking news. That’s huge. What do you say we go celebrate? Michael? Have you got plans tonight?”
“Not really,” Michael started to say.
“Not tonight,” Grayson said hastily. “I’ve got some stuff to take care of.”
“Like what?” Conley asked.
“Tonight doesn’t work for me, okay?” Grayson said. “Maybe later in the week. Now, all y’all scoot. We don’t have the budget for overtime.”
